[wip] office shelf

i designed the shelf in onshape because, despite trying multiple times, i keep bouncing off of openscad – but i have an Emacs Package That Will Fix This^tm now so hopefully that helps. so that i could get board dimensions & a cutlist, plus check all the fits. it's relatively simple, just a bunch of boards at angles to each other and a french cleat to hang it. i (relatively labor-intensively) worked out a visual bom for the cutlist, accounting for the width of my tiny circular saw's blade. a render of the shelf:

i wound up dropping the turnbuckles in the final shelf, as it felt sturdy enough without them. once i had the shelf cadded and it passed the gf check, i laid out all the pieces on standard 1×4 10' boards, a half-inch 4' × 8' piece of plywood, and some quarter-inch 8' lattice for trim:

after that, i… bought the wood, which was a whole thing i won't get into here. suffice to say i should just go to the lumber yard nearest me next time. :sweat:

once the woods were delivered, i proceeded to turn them into more woods.

since i'm doing this in my backyard with a handheld 5.5" circular saw, i had to improvise for the more interesting cuts (read: the ones that any sane person would do on a table saw). i clamped together a lot of temporary jigs and guides, especially for the long rip cuts in the boards & plywood.

after cutting the wood, i stained one note on wood stain (and generally oil-based wood finishes): the stuff is nasty (mine, minwax red chestnut, contained aliphatic hydrocarbons). use appropriate ppe. i wore 4 mil nitrile gloves religiously during this process and did the entire thing outside. there's also reputedly a spontaneous combustion hazard… the pine boards that make up the support structure for the plywood so that they would match (ish) the red woodwork already in the room. the process was pretty much: pre-stain the wood, wait about 5 minutes, then put on the actual stain (redressing it a few times) for about 20 minutes. past that i didn't really notice a deepening of color, so i wiped it off at that point.

once all the wood was dry (and a few days had passed), it was time to put the thing together! i, aspen, and alex were hanging out in the backyard while i did this. thanks to both of them for tolerating my incessant hammering. i had put together a single frame already, and discovered in doing so that i had fucked up the tolerances on the plywood corner cutouts: due some combination of

1. to the warping of the wood, and
2. my lack of foresight,

the corners were juuuuuust a bit too small to accomodate the side straps. so i had to re-saw them about one sawblade's width wider to get everything to fit comfortably (which was fine, just annoying). once i did that, though, i was able to build the substructure for each shelf and fit 'em together.

i fastened the frame using cabinet screws (where i could) and finishing nails (where i discovered by splitting the wood that i couldn't). there were nicely hidden by the trim in the end, so i don't really care that it was a bit messy. as far as i can tell, that's how a lot of woodworking gets done.

once i finished assembling the shelf, i coated it all over in a 3 lb cut of shellac in alcohol everclear, actually. i like shellac in pure ethanol as a finish, because what it lacks in durability and scratch resistance it (in my opinion) more than makes up for in repairability and just generally being a pleasure to work with. also it's edible. take that, you urethane enjoyers! and let it dry.

well, i haven't done it yet, have i?